I am woman who likes to clean as she cooks. By the time I serve a meal (which lately isn’t very often because I never know who will be home at dinner or worse what anyone wants to eat) I like to have the bulk of the meal preparation cleaned up. For instance, I just made myself a scrambled egg for breakfast, when I sat down to eat the egg I already had all the utensils used to make the egg in the dishwasher and all the ingredients back in the refrigerator. And the stove and countertop are clean. I find it very difficult to sit down and enjoy a meal while the kitchen is a mess.

Furthermore, I can’t move onto dessert while the dinner dishes are still out. I have to clean up the dinner dishes before I can serve the ice cream, or cup cakes, or whatever. In other words, I struggle to enjoy one moment until the remnants of the last one are nice and tidy. But that isn’t real life, is it?

(Remember these?)

I’ve been in the middle of a messy place for many months. In my last post I mentioned that I was uncomfortable with my own thoughts and that they are playing tug of war with some of my most closely held beliefs. I’ve been waiting for those thoughts to tidy themselves up before I shared them. But that hasn’t really happened. I told a friend I feel like I’m waiting for the Jell-O in my mind to set before I can pull it out of the fridge and serve it.

I’d like to say it’s for some noble reason, but the truth is I’m a big chicken. I am afraid others will look at my mess and judge. I am afraid of being misunderstood. I am afraid of being wrong or being perceived as wrong.

As of this moment, the Jell-O’s not set and I’m done waiting for it. I’m pulling it out of the fridge and serving it up. There may be times we have to drink it with a straw because it won’t stay on the spoon, but I’m rolling with it. I don’t know how often I’ll be serving and I don’t know what I will be sharing, but waiting on everything to sort itself out in a nice and tidy presentation isn’t working for me anymore.